Huge server load

  • Resolved christopheran

    (@christopheran)


    9 years, 11 months ago

    After getting hit with this soaksoak.ru thing, I cleaned out the affected files and installed WP Simple Firewall.

    Spent the whole next day with my site responding extremely slowly, sometimes failing completely. Running ‘top’ reported a server load over 40 at times.

    Thought maybe I had been further hacked, that soaksoak caused more damage that I had originally considered. Searched all day for infected files, research hacks, etc.

    Finally realized that the problems started about the time I had started using WP Simple Firewall.

    Within a few minutes of deactivating it, server load dropped to .5 and has stayed under 1 ever since.

    I like the idea of Simple Firewall. Have been using WP Firewall 2 for years on a number of my sites (neglected to put it on the site that got infected).

    What do you think might have caused the problem? Have you had reports of this happening before?

    https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/wp-simple-firewall/

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
  • Plugin Author Paul

    (@paultgoodchild)

    Can you tell me what features you were using from the Simple Firewall at that time?

    Thanks,
    Paul.

    Thread Starter christopheran

    (@christopheran)

    Firewall, Audit Trail and Auto-updates.

    This is what my top looked like, lots of php-cgi processes…

    https://www.tiikoni.com/tis/view/?id=5e08d4e

    Chris

    Plugin Author Paul

    (@paultgoodchild)

    Could I ask you to try the plugin again, this time only enabling 1 of those features at a time and checking your load?

    Then, if after turning on just one of them, the load spikes, could you let me know? I know it’s a bit of work, but would do 2 things:

    – confirm that it’s not a timing coincidence (since you’re enabling it again) with anything else that ran on the server at the time.
    – single out the possible feature that’s going wrong so as to give a clue to what’s happening.

    Thanks!
    Paul.

    Thread Starter christopheran

    (@christopheran)

    Hi Paul,

    I don’t know if this will help much, but I tested and this is what I got:

    Activated it (already had those three features turned on from before) and server load when from under .30 to over 40.0 in a hurry.

    Turned off the audit trail and there was no change.

    Turned off firewall, and load went down and hovered around 5.0

    Turned off automatic updates and between 3.o to 4.5 (all features turned off). Left it like that for a while, but it didn’t drop any more.

    Deactivated plugin, steadily dropped back down to under .50 after a few minutes.

    Numbers based on one-minute load averages several minutes after changes made.

    Maybe a plugin conflict? I can’t take the downtime to go through turning off all the other plugins to test that thought, not before Christmas at least – my contributors would revolt ?? It’s a busy time for us.

    WP Firewall 2 doesn’t cause any additional server load. I just don’t know how effective it is, being several years out of date – but guess it will do for now,

    Chris

    Hey Sorry I dunno how to make a new post and tag you in it for the WP Simple Firewall plugin….I added the function of “Member Access” on WP-SF and now am locked from my site….can you tell me where this is in wp_options in the database so that I might remove it?

    Thanks!!

    got it nevermind, thanks though!

    Plugin Author Paul

    (@paultgoodchild)

    I’ve made an update to the plugin in how it reads the plugin configuration files…. this will affect certain WordPress configuration and I don’t know if yours is included in that.

    If you’re still interested to give it a try, please feel free and let me know how it works for you.

    Thanks!
    Paul.

    Thread Starter christopheran

    (@christopheran)

    Thanks Paul, it will probably be after Christmas, but I’ll let you know the results when I test it out ??

    Thread Starter christopheran

    (@christopheran)

    Hi Paul,

    Just wanted to let you know that I’ve put the current version of WP Simple Firewall back on the site and it’s working fine – no visible affect on the server load now.

    Thanks – and sorry it took me so long to get back to this ??

    Chris

    Plugin Author Paul

    (@paultgoodchild)

    No problem at all… glad you were able to come back and see the improvements.

    I’ve made a number of tweaks to improve performance of the plugin in general and there are a couple more to come.

    Thanks again Chris, really appreciate your efforts!
    Paul.

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
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